Decided to try my hand at a SI Naruto fic because I thought it would be cool. I do plan to polish grammar and story in the future.
And depending on the reception, I might even increase frequency of updates.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto and whatnot...lalala crap.
Well, without further ado.
Air escaped my lungs as I crushed violently against the crumbling wall. It was an excruciating experience, to gain consciousness just a few moments before experiencing the most agonising pain of your life. That was my experience, my current experience as I so desperately try to fill my empty lungs with precious air once more.
Disarrayed and unfocused, I just did whatever was necessary to preserve my existence. There was no thought, no coordination. It was just a desperate attempt to remind my body how to behave and operate once more.
Unfortunately, the act of breathing had suddenly become such a foreign concept to me as I just laid there opening and closing my mouth like a goldfish out of water.
And the pain? Like a raging fire and a few thousand needles prickling violently against my unsuspecting back.
I didn't deserve this, no one deserved this. But like most things that happened throughout my life, I ended up with something I had no right having. Such was the uselessness of human given rights.
It took a couple of seconds for me to draw a lungful of air, an act that resulted in a fit of coughs as I accidentally gasped in the dust filled air around me. Blood and small pink chunks left together with the pollutant in my lungs.
Remnants of whatever organs suffered damage inside me. Surprisingly, the expulsion left me feeling somewhat better, which wasn't saying much seeing how I was still on the verge of death. Still, I was granted the ability to comprehend once more, and I took a few moments to level my thoughts and figure out what was going on.
Screams, shouts, cries and earth shattering roar filled the air. I could see a concealed outline of a giant orange creature in the distance, its numerous tails flailing around and causing violent gusts of winds. Flashes of lights and fire echoed around it in unpredictable patterns.
The creature had a rather vile aura about it, like a manifestation of the ugliest of negative emotions. Even from this far, I could feel how wrong it felt, enraged and corrosive.
It was also one of the three biggest presences that screamed louder than everyone else. It felt like uncoordinated metal music to whatever sense I found myself perceiving it with.
I closed my eyes and tried focusing once again.
The scene tickled a memory inside me, but my current condition didn't necessarily allow for stable recollections. I was more concerned about my fading existence despite my many attempts to ignore that part.
It looked like a battle, a frightening battle at that.
'Well, it doesn't concern me.'
Unfortunately, it kind of did. My current condition was probably a result of whatever attack the giant fur-ball sent my way. Normally, an attack that placed a near death's door would warrant a lifelong grudge.
I remained stationary where I was, choosing to not make any unnecessary movements in hopes to not aggravate the surging pain around my body.
I once again regarded the giant creature, before noticing it vanished out of existence. Surprising as that was, I found myself feeling relieved and a bit lighter. A part of me knew that I should be questioning how something like that was even possible, but the other part just wanted whatever was going on to be over so that the necessary people could start searching for me.
I didn't want to die, especially not this violently.
It took another half an hour or so before my prayers could be answered. I was already starting to wish for my own death when a group of ragged people dressed in oddly military attire found me. A light green vest with dozens of pockets and a blue pair of pants. They also wore a weird looking headband with a rectangular shining metal piece with a symbol that played on my memories.
Unfortunately, for all of its familiarity, I was too tired and hurting to place it with the corresponding memory in my mind.
"Hey, I think I found someone here!"
One of them announced, his finger pointing right at me. Instead of being relieved by his notice of me, I found myself puzzled by how I was able to understand the gibberish that came out of his mouth, especially by my ability to comprehend it.
Another dismissal, I was too hurting to be playing Sherlock.
The others turned to the initial's discovery and rushed towards me. Rather than performing the necessary procedures to assess the extent of my injuries, one of them detached from the group as the others turned their back and took formation that suggested defence from would-be attackers.
"Don't worry kid, you're gonna be fine now."
I didn't buy it, not one of these people looked like they were proficient in medical reinforcement. Still, with the condition I was in, I had no choice but to let them do their thing.
The detached individual reached me and hovered his hands before my form. I regarded his hands with suspicion, wondering what kind of voodoo the guy was planning on performing on me.
Well, having seen a creature the size of a football stadium vanishing out of existence, the fact that my saviour's hands glowed green kind of just breezed over me.
My only noticeable reaction to the whole thing was when I started feeling the excruciating pain in my body subsided which allowed a sudden widening of my eyes.
It took only thirty seconds for all the pain in my body to leave me, and I found myself wanting to form a new religion around this miracle worker. I have often heard that near death experiences could change a person, I never really thought that I would call quits on atheism so fast.
Still confused by the whole ordeal, I chose to burn the face of the guy who saved me into my psyche.
— I mean screw ripped water walking guy, my true saviour is silver haired glasses guy.
Now that I thought about it, the guy looked kind of familiar too. I was starting to resent the crazy deja vu moments.
Fortunately for me, I found my consciousness fading as soon as my saviour announced my condition fine and stable. Soon after the group left, I laid lazily on the hard debris and let darkness claim me.
Now that I think about it, not the brightest idea on my part.
[Two days later]
I wish I could say that the Naruto series held considerable influence over my childhood, but that would be a lie, of course that doesn't mean I didn't like the show. It was actually a fun watch, but I never really delved deep into its lore or story. I mostly watched the series due to peer pressure and trends.
I also remember having deep heated discussions about it with someone — the person was most likely my friend. I think he was an actual fan of the show, the guy made it his mission to preach to me about the masterpiece that was Naruto whenever he got the chance. He was definitely an oddball, and I wonder what he would do if he found himself in my situation.
I was currently at the city's cemetery were a mass funeral was being held. The whole population was probably in attendance — which still numbered around several thousands — and yet I still found myself at the front with the other notable figures.
I don't really know how I found myself here because I definitely didn't get dragged. I mean one moment I was manoeuvring myself through the mass, and then suddenly I was in the front row.
Some old dude was giving a speech about tragedy, sacrifice and will of flame or something. I wasn't really listening, my focus detached from everything else as I found my eyes glued to the photo of some guy with long golden hair and an oddly feminine face, the guy was too androgynous, I mean what the hell? But it wasn't his appearance the held my attention, but his smile, it was beautiful and charismatic that I found myself wondering if I have suddenly become gay.
It was true, I once again found myself switching the face of silver haired glasses guy — whom I quickly deduced to be young Kabuto Yakushi — with this brilliant dead blonde, Namikaze Minato.
Usually, looking so intently at the photo of someone would garner some attention, but I was pretty sure that a quarter of the gathered were mourning this guy. Even the old guy looked at the photo with a sorrowful look that wouldn't have looked out of place at his child's funeral.
Such was the popularity of the Yondaime Hokage.
Standing there staring, I wondered how the whole thing would have played out if he hadn't sacrificed himself to perform the Shiki Fūjin. I mean it's a commonly agreed fact that rather than being killed, Minato just outright sacrificed himself to take half of the Kyuubi's Yang Half with him.
Well, one thing was for sure, Orochimaru wouldn't have been as troublesome to kill with Minato's chakra present on the guy. Seriously though, it was like the Yondaime marked every single important person in Konoha.
You might be wondering how I was able to sense this. Well, this answer was actually simple to uncover. I was not a resident of this world. I know that might not make sense to some, but what I meant was that I came from a world devoid of supernatural abilities, so when I found myself in this body, I quickly discovered the wrongness of the environment. The supernatural energy was practically screaming at me, and I found myself highly sensitive to it.
You didn't think I came to this mass funeral just to pay my respects did you. Okay, a bit of trivia about me, I was never a sentimental person, and I tended to accept things pretty easily. Like when I found out that my parents died in a car accident, I found that my heart only hurt for just a few hours before I accepted their erasure from existence.
I even decided to see a psychiatrist to see if I was repressing my emotions and feelings.
I soon found out I was just shy of being a full blown psycho when news of my true lover's passing left me unfazed. It turned out that two days of absence in my life kind of made a person foreign to me.
So no, I was not necessarily fazed by the passing of my parents in this life either. But I also noticed that I wasn't the same person I used to be. I was a merger between two different identities, but as the person with a fully matured psyche, I ended up taking the reins of this new identity of mine.
And now that that's out of the way, what was I really doing at this funeral. Like I said, the whole city was practically here, which meant this was a perfect opportunity to give faces to chakra signatures so that I knew who they were upon future encounters or interactions.
This made me wonder if I was a sensor and my awakening just magnified/enhanced it. Well, it would allow Why my sensing bordered on empathetic.
I ripped my eyes from the late charismatic leader, and greatest anti-army deterrent Konoha has ever had.
It was a tiring chore to cramp all the faces along with their corresponding chakra signatures. I would have to meditate immediately to consolidate the memories. There was also the difficult chore of matching 2d anime characters to actual people, and let me tell you, nobody looks exactly like their anime counterpart.
So no, when I saw young Kakashi Hatake, he wasn't some guy with gravity defying white hair, no, he was just a teen with a trendy haircut and a face mask. Honestly, the kid looked broken and lost. I mean he no doubt thought himself cursed or something.
Sensing his chakra signature, I found he was one of the few individuals with multiple chakra signatures. The others were Danzō Shimura who stood a bit further away with the other Elders, or should I say advisors. Like Kakashi, his foreign signature was on his eye — his right eye to be specific.
The final individual had a multitude of four chakra signatures, and it didn't take long to identify him even without looking towards him. In a way, I could say that Kakashi gave him away.
I had often asked myself why Tobi didn't just retrieve his Sharingan back from Kakashi, it wasn't like it would have been a difficult process. I mean, because Asura Ōtsutsuki cells, the side effects of blindness should be void for him, and with his high reserves, he should have been able to achieve a Perfect Susanoo without issue.
But now that I could feel his chakra, I realised that the bastard was no different from Kakashi, he was just shy of being broken with the only things keeping him grounded, the two remaining remnants of what was great about his former life.
It made me wonder just how many times the poor sob had visited the child of his late sensei under a henge. It was obvious that despite his hatred for his sensei for failing to save Rin, the boy still adored him.
— I bet he only wanted him to experience the pain of losing someone important in his life so that Minato could finally experience his pain.
I found myself shaking my head internally, Tobi's actions were truly those of a clueless teen. After all, loss didn't make one intelligent. Maturity didn't compensate for intelligence either.
The passing of Rin might have opened his 'eye' to the cruelty of the world, but his limited intellect allowed him to fail to dig beyond the surface.
— Bah, maybe if he dug deeper he might have discovered that only he and Madara needed to be trapped in the Tsukiyomi in order to achieve their dreams.
Again, I shook my head internally. Surprisingly, I found myself unfazed by the Zetsu's intent to revive Kaguya. It was as if I knew that my existence had already begun the effect that would render such an outcome void. It was unfortunate, but I would have to destroy Madara's Rinnegan. We couldn't have such godlike powers in our midst, now could we.
Nagato would have to lose his god complex and go full blind and powerless. The bastard should have been made like an actual Uzumaki and studied Fūinjutsu and Kenjutsu.
I put a halt on my plans and once again focused on the funeral proceedings. It turned out that my frontal position had still yet to catch suspicion. I pondered if my young appearance was providing me some sort of concealment or if I was really that conspicuous.
I doubted that my late parents would be some kind of big shots, no, they were just your average merchants if slightly richer than most who hunger to reach the high society and thus the hierarchy. It was this greed for recognition that pushed them to enrol me into the Academy.
Well, I probably would have ended up failing, it didn't take me long to realise that my reserves and control were shit. I would need to enhance my coils and expand my reserves. I at least want my reserves to be larger or equal to an adult Uzumaki.
It should be shared that Naruto wasn't really a normal Uzumaki, and thus his reserves were highly uncommon even among his kin. With all honesty, there would be no need for anyone's reserves to be so outrageous. After all, it's all about chakra control. Fine control could also let one fling S-rank jutsu without exhaustion.
So no, Naruto wasn't a baseline for chakra reserves.
After another half an hour, the ceremony came to an end. I waited a minute for most of the gathered to leave. Unlike the many, I was still a six year old Academy student, thus even with this recent tragedy, I still had a lot of time on my hands.
It should also be mentioned that despite the passing of my parents, I wasn't shipped with the children who lost their parents to the orphanage. No, my home and family stores were still fine as they were located on the part untouched by the disaster. All my family assets still remained — granted that most of the items had been bought for the village rebuilding.
With a month off from the Academy, I would have the needed time to come up with a plan to ensure the stability of my businesses. Not something you'd expect to come out of a six year old.
When there were only a few hundred people remaining, I made my way towards the section of civilians. Given the sequential order of the burying pattern, it didn't take me long to locate my parents' resting places.
'Taka Kimura', who was my father. The surname made me wonder just how far he was willing to go to gain recognition. Well, for better or for worse, the guy was a good egg.
I knelt before his grave and placed a mixture of lilies and hydrangeas. The guy didn't deserve to go the way he did. But like I said, we always ended up with things we had no right to.
Finishing with my father, I turned towards my mother's grave, 'Shino Imai'. Like my father's last name, hers also had significant meaning corresponding to society. She was a bit pushy and stubborn, but that didn't mean she was a bad person. A loving and caring mother if I ever saw one, perhaps even more so than my previous mother.
There was a slight ache when I knelt before her grave and placed a batch of chrysanthemums upon it. My only solace was that unlike my father, hers was a swift and less painful death.
It was at that moment that I promised that I would come visit whenever I had time. The cemetery here had a vibrant and tranquil feel to it, unlike the creepfest that was my previous town's cemetery. For some reason, it always found a way to attract sad pretentious goths.
"Well, I think it's about time I start working on my future."
I declared in my previous tongue.
My name is Kimura Sosuke and I freaking woke up in the Naru-Verse.
